Museum

Permanent exhibition

History of the discovery

On the 3rd of August 1908, the 3 Bouyssonie brothers discovered the first complete skeleton of a Neanderthal man and the first burial site.The remains are first studied by Marcellin Boule from the National Museum of Natural History; he described this man as the missing link between man and ape.

The skeleton is studied again in 1984 by Jean Louis Heim; he proved that Neanderthal men were more clever than what was thought before.The cave Bouffia bonnevalThe diggings which had stopped after 1908 started again in 1999. Many campaigns took place between 1999 and 2012 under the direction of Thierry Bismuth, then Cedric Beauval and William Rendu.The scientific contextOne hundred years after the discovery of the man from la Chapelle aux Saints, the issue of Neanderthal burial sites in Europe is still debated among the scientific communityThe man from la chapelle aux Saints is known all around the world and is a reference for the scientific community. The museum presents:History of the discoveryThe cave Bouffia Bonneval and the digging campaignsThe evolution scaleThe fac simile of the burial siteVarious representations of NeanderthalNeanderthal and Cro MagnonClimate, environment, animalsTools

Young public

During the holidays, it is kids time

Family worshop: become a prehistoric man: guided tour in French adapted to kids then painting, fire making and hunting“prehisto snacks”